Inner follows the outer
 

Just to share a perspective ~

To know what cannot be known by mind, since mind-body is immanent and deeper wisdom is transcendent, we adopt a this or that practice, maybe some form of meditation, contemplation, yogic practice or prayer. Whilst laudable, is the striving not by a doer (us) who is limited? Moreover, assuming we take out time for the practice and follow it as best as we can, what about the rest of the day? If for the most part, we are caught up in small worldly issues and act moment to moment out of reflex instinct, is not the spiritual exercise we undertake a mere eyewash?

In my experience, the inner follows the outer, meaning that, upon choosing to shift by continuous contemplative consciousness correction, not only is attention gentled and softened but in a mindfulness continuum, tamas or inertia is reduced, Rajas or desire is diminished and so our orientation becomes empty of thoughts and concepts. Fear too reduces, since fear mirrors desire. We learn to discern and distinguish between impulses of mind-body vs our soul or Self, best initially simply recognised as conscience.

It is a type of surrender, this slowing down, where head melds with heart and ceasing grasping we begin connecting.

So, this is not meditation in the conventional use of the term, no. It is a conscious decision to shift how we think, speak and act and keep on refining our sensibilities.

In my experience, what happens is that with silence as our default orientation, divine magnetism is automatically activated. We can call it kundalini or chi or Holy Spirit or whatever. The knowing that follows is essentially a becoming, a transmutation, felt and recognised directly in thought rested awareness. I’ll not elaborate on the ‘levels’ etc, since basically there aren’t any, all that is, is a gradual (or maybe sudden) dropping of identity so that we see ourselves as we always were and are as self-existent living light.

In today’s world of quick-fix solutions and need for speed, perhaps this shift in lived reality may not find favour with most but nevertheless, I’m sharing this method or non-method, whatever we wish to call it, if it resonates.

I concur with what you have shared here. When I started studying the Hebrew Kabbalah, the first thing the Rabbis told me was to get my inner life together and my outer life would follow.

By getting my inner life together it was meant to refine my conscience, be conscious of my thought process, attitude, etc. Over time doing inner work, I experienced my outer life falling into place as well. Order was at the center of it all. Order has been so important to me having a successful life.

So I have now developed the philosophy that what we see in the human species is just a reflection of what is going on inside of people. I kinda already knew this as a former mental health therapist but spiritual understanding really bought it home for me.

I called this the "inner work", the only work we have to do and the only work most of humanity runs as far as possible ( including me but with courage I started walking back to myself ), not wanting to stop and look within ourselves out of the fear that all the mistakes we have made will come back and eat us ( at least this is what I see in the world and in my own subjective experience observing things ). There's also the fact that the mind sees it as nothingness and that is the ignorance of the mind not realizing that its own existence comes out of there and is sustained by this apparent nothingness.

What I found is that the more you are aware of your own self the more you see things as they are, to the point black and white loose their naming and they just are to the point that all there is simply is and all there is consciousness. You do not have to be into spirituality to know that the whole world is constructed in the brain and this in itself can change one's perspective on the nature of reality.

What it means to be aware of one's self? The truth of who we are and what the world is.

All I say is based on my experiences.

I think “based on my experience” is all any of us can say. I feel like we all live on the same planet but we do not all live in the same world; semantics.

The world we live in is determined by our outlook. In my opinion the quality of our vision determines the course of our progress. If our vision is skewed so will our outer life be skewed.

By vision I mean awareness; as we look with our eyes but we see with our awareness. For me it helps a great deal to keep my energy high and my focus clear. Energy minus obstruction equals vitality.

Every problem I have had in my life was due to unconsciousness, or in other words, a lack of awareness.

I believe it is vice versa: the outer follows the inner; the outer is a distorted reflection of the inner.

Sure if the 'inner' is bad news. We are what we think.
So far what's happening on the outer for years around me is the opposite of distorted ...
it's pretty cool! :smile: I'm not bragging, but rather hoping to inspire to get Inner Thoughts positive,
hopeful, appreciative of even the little things, kind....turn
lemons into lemonade...laugh are things others would break a dish over.

The litmus test is the outer, our thoughts, words and deeds. I’m calling thoughts outer too, being objects.

For a feel good factor, it’s easy to be spaced out, blissed out for a while or chant a mantra or whatever but if our responses to whatever unfolds in life, moment to moment, does not shift to equanimity, through a continuous mindfulness, true shift has not occurred. Forgiveness transitioning to acceptance. Feeling by so becoming, higher octaves of love by responding as such. Quietening rage, lust, greed, admonishing envy, in short distilling attention.

Real life matters. Someone is tailgating our car, pushing ahead in the queue, glaring, misjudging … how do we respond? Later, we check dream responses, how do we respond in dreams to what unfolds? Is there inconsistency, inner conflict? Are we friendly, innocent, playful, childlike? If not, fix it.

The inner being or Self always is as is, self-luminous, veiled by thought patterns spawned by deluded fears, desires and attachments, by mistaken concepts, beliefs and conditioning. All this garbage must go.

Thereafter, as of my experience, nothing needs to be done since what has been attempted is to align head and heart, the ego and soul. The two of us who are in here in body vessel, become one. We then are free, which we always were but didn’t know it.

When people state their beliefs with high confidence, it makes me wonder if there is a way to gauge the validity and the truthfulness of one's beliefs. It seems that most people are content to believe they are right, and that all those with different beliefs are wrong.

There was a tv show in which the judge was forcing all those who expressed an opinion in her court to preface their statements with "in my opinion ...". It seemed ridiculous, but it actually was a good reminder for everybody, and for the jurors especially, of the subjectivity of peoples' perceptions and beliefs.



On another forum, somebody wrote with confidence: "But for dirty water, the cue, the trigger, the impetus, the relative cause, is entirely 'external'. Need I say more?"

Not really. You can be hypnotized to react to regular water as if it tasted or looked "dirty". So you don't react to the "external". Obviously the poster needn't say more; his confident opinion was wrong.

My inner life protects me from mishaps in my outer life; this is not a belief or opinion, it is a fact. I can only speak for my experience, when I built up that divine presence within me it cushioned me from unwanted external situations.

Intuitively it told me to cross the street one night when I was out walking, and later learned if I had stayed on that same street I might have gotten mugged as that is what happened to someone who was on that street the same time as me.

Things like this has happened to me many, many, times over the past couple of decades. No one tail gates me and I do a lot of driving. I feel protected because I nurture the divine which is within me. Prior to reaching this state I had all sorts of hurts and harmful things happen to me.

In Vietnam during that War lots of soldiers would refer to other soldiers who seem to have a “light” around them as being invulnerable, because those soldiers never got hurt, they never got a scratch. This is still a belief by many in the military today.

But I was not one of those soldiers back then in Vietnam whose light was glaring and I did get injured. It took me decades later, and lots of time nurturing my inner light before I reached the harmonious protected state I enjoy today, and have now enjoyed for sometime.

As a former mental health therapist, we diagnose what is going on inside of a person to account for their outward behavior. Outside situations can effect a person internally, but what is taught at the doctoral level in most schools of psychology, is that the outside is a symptom of what is going on inside.

In psychology it is taught that an internal source of control is much better than an external source of control. The outside effecting the inside is a reaction, while the inside effecting the outside is a reflection. Just sharing my personal experiences on this subject here; others will see it in whatever other way they choose.

PS Unseeking....the world is watching the terrible train accident there.
So, so sorry.